Hanging on to Sanity
by idealskeptic
Summary: My take on a missing moment from Mockingjay - so it includes possible Mockingjay spoilers. Told from Peeta's POV, this is how he, Johanna, and Annie pulled through their time not spent in District 13 with the rebels and their loved ones.


**Disclaimer: **All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners. The original characters and plot are the property of the author. The author is in no way associated with the owners, creators, or producers of any media franchise. No copyright infringement is intended.

**A/N: **This is from Peeta's POV during his time as a Capitol prisoner during _Mockingjay_. Sort of a "missing moment." But, if you have not yet read _Mockingjay_, don't read this unless you're willing to have a few things spoiled.

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**Hanging on to Sanity**

Of all the tortures the Capitol has devised, the one that's most effective is _scheduled_ _torture_. They torture the girl in the cell on the right side of you when they leave you alone. You can't sleep, you can't think, you can't move. All you can do is listen to her scream. Then, when they finish torturing her, they come back to you. You're not her, but it's easy to imagine that she can't sleep, she can't think, she can't move. All she can do is listen to you scream.

Johanna and I worked out a system of sorts in the weeks we've been captive in The Capitol. If I'm able to move and speak, and that's not always the case, I move to the wall that separates us and talk to her while they torture her. Then she does the same for me. We tell each other whatever we can think of. She tells me the best way to cut down a towering pine tree and how to treat one that's got a disease. I tell her recipes for breads and pastries and how to frost a cake. I know that her mother used to read her fairytales before bed when she was a little girl and I know that her father died in an accident she blamed herself for when a tree fell the wrong way and crushed him. She knows that Katniss wore a green dress with white buttons on it when we had to take a dance lesson in school and she knows that my father told me when he wasn't sorry anymore that he didn't marry Mrs. Everdeen because it meant that I could have Katniss.

Katniss.

They're trying to poison my mind. They want to make me hate her, they want to make me kill her.

I can't. I won't.

I love Katniss.

I _won't_ hurt her. I _can't_ hurt her.

I repeat the mantra over and over and over again in my mind, trying to be more powerful than the tracker jacker venom they're injecting me with. It won't work, I know that. But at least I'll have tried.

They come for me then, always two Peacekeepers with their faces obscured by masks. They never say anything. They only pull me to feet and drag me out of my cell.

_Foot_. They pull me to my foot. Just one.

Someone decided I might try and escape, so they took my artificial leg. I just have the one foot now. Except when they reattach it so I can look like me for the cameras.

"Don't you dare give up," Johanna calls out, having heard my door open. She's only taken from her cell when they need to truly torture her for information, when she comes back from that, she doesn't speak for days. She knows, though, that they use me for propaganda and, even though I knew nothing about the rebellion, she won't let me give up. "Don't give up, Peeta!"

I have a neighbor on the other side, too. She knows less than I do, so they don't torture her at all. Not any more than listening to Johanna and I scream. She does her best to keep me sane too.

"Katniss," Annie Cresta murmurs as they lead me past her cell. "You have to remember you love Katniss. You love Katniss. You _love_ her."

I do. I do love Katniss. Now I just have to remember that.

Portia's waiting in the room when the Peacekeepers leave me. Her wrists and ankles are shackled until four more Peacekeepers arrive and guard the doors. Only then is she freed while I'm given back my leg.

"Cover the bruises on his face completely," a female Peacekeeper snaps.

I already know that they aren't supposed to bruise my face during my torture. Facial disfigurement is too hard to cover up for the camera and they want me looking healthy and well. Kicking a guard in the groin doesn't really endear you to them, though, and the one I kicked reacted before his partner could stop him.

Portia works her magic even with a shaking hand. I can tell that she's been tortured too but, in front of six Peacekeepers, we can't really say anything. I figured out pretty quickly that she and Cinna had both been in on the rebellion so, from a logical point of view, it isn't surprising that they're torturing her for information. Not too much, though, because they still need her to make me presentable.

When she's finished, she leans forward and quickly kisses my forehead. "Be brave," she murmurs. "Be strong."

I stand up and hug her, ignoring the guards – they need us too much to retaliate more than they already have. "Be brave, be strong," I say, repeating her words. "See you soon."

I don't know if I'll see her soon, or ever again, but I want to. So I say it. And I say it again as I'm lead from the room and she's shackled again. I know her better than anyone here and I can't lose her.

Today's propaganda is an interview with Caesar. It's been long enough since my last tracker jacker injection that I know enough to repeat the lines they want me to say, but it's also been long enough that I can say things to Katniss, things I hope she'll hear and think about and understand.

When they take me from the interview room to a sterile white room, I know I've been too obvious and they're going to up the amount of tracker jacker venom in my system.

When I'm next aware of my surroundings, I'm slumped on the floor of my cell. I've got only one foot again and there's pain radiating through every part of my body. Pain is okay, though, because it means I'm still alive, still aware.

"Peeta? Peeta, are you awake? Can you hear me?"

The soft voice coming from the other side of the wall I'm leaning against isn't Johanna's. I realize I must be on the other side of the room and it must be Annie. "I can hear you," I force myself to say through an aching jaw. "Are you okay?"

"Yes, I'm fine. I was only worried because you weren't there for so long and then, even after they brought you back, you didn't move or talk for so long. Are you okay?"

At least I didn't scream.

"I suppose," I say as I realize I can hear her better than I did before. I quickly check and realize that my eyes are indeed open. Moving slowly and carefully, trying not to hurt myself more, I turn and look at the wall. A single brick has been moved, angled so that either one of us can push it back if someone comes.

"Hello, Peeta," Annie says, smiling sadly from the other side of the brick. "Don't worry, Finnick and Katniss will come and rescue us. I know they will."

Something in her deep green eyes and the conviction she speaks with give me comfort and break my heart at the same time. I slump against the wall again, sobbing into my hands as I feel her thin fingers trace random patters on my temple and my forehead, the only parts of me she can reach. I cry myself to sleep and, when I wake up, Annie's fallen asleep too. I think about moving to the cot in my cell, but it isn't much more comfortable than where I am now and I don't want Annie to wake up alone.

Only when Johanna starts to scream to I stir. I don't have to wake Annie; she hears it too and all but orders me to Johanna's wall. I can't be bothered to try and stand, so I crawl. Once I'm there, I recite recipes for every baked thing I can think of that can be made with blackberries, Johanna's favorite. She's slipping fast, though. I know they've gotten her wet and electrocuted her and she's hanging on to her sanity by a thread. Not that I'm the best judge of these things.

When I heard the Peacekeepers leave her cell and she goes quiet, I start pressing on the bricks, praying that there's one to match the spot that links me and Annie. After fifteen minutes, I find a loose brick and mark it by scratching a small square in the corner. I won't open it until I hear Johanna awake again.

The three of us, the three victors held captive by The Capitol, spend a week like that. I split my time between being tortured, trying to sleep, comforting Johanna, and talking to Annie. It helps too, because I can tell Johanna the stories Annie tells me. She doesn't always make a lot of sense but, when she does, the pictures she paints with words could rival the most famous paintings in history.

Another benefit to the loose bricks comes in terms of food. Annie, who the Capitol sees as harmlessly insane, gets the most food; bread, milk, and sometimes even cheese. Johanna, who knew the most and means the least in the end, gets only water and a small bowl of dried fruit. I, who know little but is needed the most, get water and some sort of nutritional bar every day. It's Annie who organizes us.

It's complicated too. She first tried to tell me that she'll give me her food because I'm most important to the rebellion. Johanna agreed with her at first, suggesting that she and Annie split the dried fruit and nutrient bar. They were both temporarily stumped when I pointed out that Snow was trying to hijack my mind so I'd kill Katniss and become his trained … whatever he wanted me to be. If anyone's going to be a help to the rebellion in the end, I'd bet on Johanna. Not to mention that Annie isn't being trained to kill Finnick.

For all that I've heard about 'crazy' Annie Cresta, she proves the people who call her that wrong every day. She spent a day thinking about my argument over the food and came up with a solution that no one in their right mind could have argued with.

We were going to split everything three ways.

If she got a piece of cheese, she'd carefully divide it into three, passing me two thirds with one for Johanna. Johanna, for her part, would count her pieces of fruit and divide them evenly and I'd pass a third to Annie. All I had to do was break the bar into three and give it to each of them. Annie even decreed that someone different would have the milk every day.

Who was I to argue with food?

In solidarity with me and Johanna, Annie even refuses to eat anything unless we do, unless we _can_.

A week after we discover the bricks, I wake up from a fitful sleep when Annie's whispering my name again and again.

When she sees me move, she says my name even more and tells me to sit up close to the loose brick. When I do as I'm told, I hear the worst news I could ever imagine.

"They're going to come for you later today," Annie tells me in a whisper. "They're going to hurt you and inject you again and then they're going to make you appear on television with President Snow."

I know, somewhere in my muddled mind, that she wouldn't be telling me this if there weren't something more to it. "How do you know?" I ask when I realize she's staring off at a random spot on the wall. "Finish what you need to tell me, Annie. How do you know? Is there more?"

Annie blinks, bringing herself back into the moment. "Yes, there's more," she says slowly before she answers my other questions and explains. "They took me for a bath and the guards were talking. They didn't think I was listening. But I was, Peeta, I was listening. You have to believe me. I heard the most awful thing, Peeta."

She's staring off again.

I do the only thing I can think to do to bring her back and find out what she heard – I remind her of the ones we love. "Annie, what did you hear? Does Katniss need to know it? Does _Finnick_ need to hear it?"

She blinks three times, her eyes clearing almost immediately. "Finnick," she breathes. "Yes, you have to tell Finnick that they're going to bomb District 13 tonight. You have to tell him, Peeta. Please tell him. Please!"

"I'll tell him, Annie," I promise her as a cold knot of dread settles in my stomach. "If I can think of it when I'm on camera, I'll tell him. Is there anything else?"

She only murmurs Finnick's name again and pushes the brick back into place.

I spend the hours before the come for me repeating Annie's words over and over in my head, desperate that they'll still be there in some form when I need to say them to the camera. I know full well they may be the last words I ever say, but I have to say them.

I will say them.

By the time I'm taken to a room so brilliantly white that it hurts my venom addled brain, I can barely move and all I know is that Annie told me something important. I can't remember what it is.

So I give the speech they want me to give.

At least I start to.

But then Katniss is on the screen. She keeps interrupting me. But she keeps reminding me too.

In the end, I choke out what I can and I pray that the people in District 13; Katniss, Finnick, Haymitch, understand what I mean. If I even remembered what Annie said right.

I know I remembered it right when two Peacekeepers pull me out of my chair and throw me on the floor, kicking me in the stomach with just enough force to keep me from speaking, breathing, or thinking but not enough to knock me unconscious. It's a patented trick of theirs.

The next few hours are hell.

They keep me awake while they go through every method of torture they can think of.

There isn't a moment I wouldn't rather die than go through any more of this.

But I don't die.

At least I warned them.

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